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Choosing Allegiances by TaleWeaver
Honorable Mention in the Best Shippy Fanfic category in the 2003 Farscape Fanfiction Awards.
TV Shows > Farscape > Close Encounters 1: Choosing Allegiance
Author: TaleWeaver - NC-17 - English - Drama - Reviews: .6-
TITLE: Close Encounters 1: Choosing Allegiances
AUTHOR: TaleWeaver
DISCLAIMER: All Farscape characters belong to Rockne S O'Bannon, the Jim Henson company and Nine Network Australia. I don't own them, though I would do fairly extreme things for a John clone. CONTENT/RATING: NC-17. Consensual sex [John/Aeryn]
This would usually be classified PWP, but I prefer CSWS - Character study with smut. (All really good PWP's are like this, anyway.)
SPOILERS: Premiere, Rhapsody in Blue and The Way We Weren't. Non-spoiler references to Back and Back and Back to the future, They've got a secret, Nerve and LatP 2.
SERIES PREMISE: Episode additions or intervals, based on the theory (put forward by the Aeryn Sun Interpretation Society and Widows and Orphans Emergency Beer Fund) that John and Aeryn could very well have been sleeping together off-screen since the premiere. In production, not screening, order.
SUMMARY: [A/U series] Just after the premiere, John and Aeryn have a *really* close encounter; thus
beginning something that will continue to intrigue, annoy and outright baffle them both.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Happy Beta Reader Appreciation Day, Becca!
*
"If you want to live, choose your allegiances carefully. That's not to say there's any guarantees, though." Aeryn Sun to John Crichton, 'Premiere'.
*
"Where do you want this?"
Aeryn nodded over to the back wall. "Over by the mirror. I'll figure out precisely where to put it once we have
the mat centered."
John carefully set down something that looked like a smaller mutant version of one of those 'all in one home
gyms' and turned to look at the woman who stood in the center of the cargo bay, hands on her hips.
It was his third day - 'solar day' they all referred to them here - on Moya. The first two had been spent working out where all the different places and functions were on the ship. Pilot had been a great help there. John thought that he was going to like the large purple crustacean. The three former prisoners hadn't been familiar with much of Moya, which had surprised John, though it shouldn't have. Just because a person spends ten years in prison, doesn't mean that they know where the guard's bathroom is.
Rygel had apparently managed to work out where a lot of things were - John had an image of the Hynerian crawling around whatever passed for a sewer system in Moya and suppressed a snicker - but the surprise had been Aeryn. She'd been quite familiar with the PK sections of the Leviathan. When asked, she'd snapped that she'd been stationed aboard a Leviathan transport for almost a monen a couple of cycles ago. John found himself mentally translating that to nearly a month two years ago.
The first night the others had spent in their old cells, now with the doors wide open. Symbolic, maybe? Uncertain about what rooms were for what on Moya - and not quite able to figure out how to open the doors - John had ended up curled up in the Farscape module. The next morning he'd found that Aeryn had had the same idea with her Prowler. He'd barely suppressed the urge to ask whether she'd been entertaining the idea of quietly slipping off into into the night.
From the fierce expression on her face, John found himself reluctant to ask her much of anything. He hoped she wouldn't get that idea, or rather wouldn't follow it through. He very much wanted this woman to stick around. Maybe it was because she was the only thing resembling human that he'd seen out here, maybe something else. He didn't know, but he wanted time to figure it out.
The first solar day aboard Moya, the crew had all picked out new quarters for themselves. For safety's sake, all the crew had agreed to quarters on the same floor - tier, that is. The rooms meant to house the PK guards and techs weren't much bigger than the prisoner's cells, but they had beds already, as well as tiny bathrooms. Unfortunately, they only contained the equivalent of toilets - John's face burned at the memory of having to ask Aeryn (who had the only vaguely similar biology) how to use them - and sinks. There were three full bathrooms, two rather like the locker rooms from high school and college on Earth.
Rygel had somehow managed to snag the Captain's quarters for himself, with the only private bathroom - cleansing chamber, they called them here. D'Argo and Aeryn, who barely spoke to each other, had united in the urge to tear Rygel's head off for the presumption. John had the uneasy feeling that this was going to happen fairly often. John had been the one to diffuse the situation by pointing out that otherwise, someone would have to share a cleansing chamber with Rygel. No one else had wanted to risk seeing him naked anymore than John had.
So the prisoners' and the PK's cleansing chamber had been dubbed men's and women's respectively. Aeryn and Zhaan were in a different section to John and D'Argo, so everyone was close to a full cleansing chamber and no one had to wander around in their bathrobe for too long. Did they even have bathrobes here?
Since then, the crew had been exploring the ship, looking for things to scavenge, for personal use or trade. Rygel had spun around in a circle on his thronesled in delight at finding something that looked like a deranged lawn mower on Tier 6; apparently they could be adapted to engines for a race that was common here in the Uncharteds. That was what had led him here.
He'd come across Aeryn on Tier 4, which apparently had been the main off-duty section for PK's. She'd been lugging around one end of an enormous soft cylinder - it was a PK gym mat she'd found in a storage area. When he'd asked what she wanted it for, she'd given him what he'd already dubbed the 'human rhymes with stupid' look, then explained slowly that she meant to set up a workout area, in order to properly maintain her physical condition. He'd taken the other end of the rolled-up mat and asked where she wanted it.
That was how they'd ended up in cargo bay five. He'd suggested it and to his (and her) surprise, Aeryn had thought it a good idea; Moya had six others after all, and his experience of Earth gyms meant the more room, the better. This bay was the hardest to get to on the outside, meant only for emergency access.
He'd pointed out the mirror covering one wall in what had been the equivalent of the officer's lounge, and suggested it to Aeryn. She'd looked at him strangely, before he'd told her how some martial arts schools on Earth had mirrors like these on the walls, so that students practicing on their own could use the mirrors to check that their bodies were in the right position. Actually, it had been the ballet studio that one of his sisters took lessons at that the mirror had been in, but he wasn't going to mention that.
Aeryn had agreed to bring it down and prop it against the wall while she considered the idea. John got the idea that she hadn't worked out alone very much. The unisex communal cleansing chambers had already shown him that privacy wasn't a big priority among PK's.
"Crichton! Stop staring into space - are you going to help me or not?"
John blinked, coming back to the present, finding an annoyed Aeryn Sun peering into his face. "Sorry, Aeryn. What's next?"
"The attack column," Aeryn snapped, turning on her heel and heading off to where the UT equivalent of a punching bag lay in pieces. Here, though, it was vaguely rectangular, tapering drastically towards the bottom, where it fit into a kind of stand.
As he obediently followed the ex-PeaceKeeper, John found himself trying to decide whether the eyes that had just been glaring at him were gray or blue.
*
Aeryn efficiently bolted the attack column into the base as the human held it steady. She looked up and found her line of sight headed towards the human male's crotch, remembering just how generously endowed he was.
Aeryn yanked her thoughts away from that subject as she gruffly asked the human to pass her the tafirm. When he asked her what that was, she reminded herself that Crichton may have looked Sebacean, but he didn't know the first thing about this part of the galaxy.
That didn't stop her noticing odd things about the man; how gracefully he moved, how even though he handled items like a tech, it was in a gentle manner a PK tech would not use. How open his face was. How he'd looked glad to see her, when she first pulled off her helmet in their cell.
In their cell, where she'd woken to find a strange, naked Sebacean (or so she'd thought) male on the floor. Only knowing that one of their captors must be watching had kept her still. Impressive indeed.
Aeryn forcibly re-focused her attention on the bolts - she'd been turning one the wrong way for almost twenty microts now! She swiftly finished attaching the stand and stood. The human looked at her enquiringly, and Aeryn told him, "Remember the thing on Tier 2 that you said looked like a pyramid?" At Crichton's nod, she added, "it's called a tidrion, meant to be used for exercises to improve balance. Could you bring it down here?"
"Sure thing, Aeryn," he said, flashing that friendly, open smile. The human smiled at everyone, she'd found. It was so innocent, like that of the small children she'd seen in the section kept for those too young to start any proper training yet.
As he walked out of the cargo bay, Aeryn found herself watching his backside. She caught herself sighing in self-disgust and forced herself to face facts. PeaceKeepers did not allow themselves to be distracted by troubling thoughts; they worked through them until they were no longer troubling, or they were deemed better to be put away. She'd tried pushing them away, but the sexually tinged thoughts of Crichton kept coming back, so they had to be faced. As she unrolled the exercise mat onto the middle of the floor, she reflected that having sexual thoughts was almost strange to her, after all this time.
PeaceKeepers treated sex like any other basic biological need. If you were hungry and your duties didn't preclude it, you ate. If you wanted sex and you found a partner who appealed to you and neither of you was on duty, you had sex. Sex was also seen as an excellent recreation and relaxation tool, particularly for relieving tensions that built up in battle.
But she hadn't recreated more than twice in almost two cycles now, since her involvement with Velorek had ended. The first time, she'd basically done it in order to prove to herself that she was over whatever feelings he'd engendered in her. She'd felt sick afterwards; the second time had been to prove to herself that she could still do it. She hadn't recreated since.
Her closest friend in Icarion Company, Dala, had teased her about it, but Aeryn had simply told her that she didn't find many males appealing anymore. Which had been the truth. She hadn't found any males truly appealing anymore. Until this one.
She'd noticed him watching her in return; she was sure she wasn't imagining that he looked at her in a different way than the others on Moya. Granted, it could just be because she looked familiar to him, but she didn't think so. She hadn't recreated for some time, but she'd seen others pair up, part, and pair up again. She was still well versed with the signs and signals, and Crichton showed many signs of finding her attractive.
Now seated on the mat, she froze as he came back in, carrying the tidrion. As he put it on the ground near the mirror, she was swamped by a wave of lust, followed by a wave of shame. How could she have forgotten that he was not Sebacean? The earliest lessons taught were to keep the bloodlines pure.
Then a realization hit her, as strongly as the shame. She was already irreversibly contaminated, already under sentence of Living Death; what more could happen to her? She had started a brand new life full of the unknown, what was more fitting than to take the man who had set her on this path as her bed mate?
*
"Crichton?"
"Yeah, Aeryn?" John asked as he straightened and turned.
"Tell me a little about your people," she asked, although it sounded more like an order.
"What do you want to know? Anything in particular?" John asked as he walked towards her, eager to talk to someone about his home.
"Rituals."
"Rituals for what?"
Aeryn looked at him thoughtfully, then said, "Mating rituals. What happens when people of your world have sex?"
John choked, then coughed. Then coughed some more - the cargo bay was pretty dusty.
"Uh, it tends to differ a lot from one social group to the other... the getting there part that is, all humans have sex the same way. Mostly, anyway." "Mostly?"
"Never mind," John said hastily. He certainly wasn't going to explain homosexuality to her if 5ebaceans didn't have it. He wasn't homophobic himself - hell, one of his best friends was bi - but he didn't feel in the least bit qualified to explain it. Much less 5 and M fans... "Why do you ask?"
Aeryn looked into his eyes, and said matter of factly, "I want to have sex with you. Is there any particular ritual to follow? Are you from one of those cultures who only believe in sex after formal oaths of loyalty?"
John had been crouching on the mat, without being really aware of it; now he sat down with a thump directly in front of her. Beneath his confusion, a flicker of lust started to grow and smolder.
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